DAVID NORRIS: IT’S OVER FOR YOU!

(pictured above: ooh ducky, we’re off to Thailand)

I met David Norris once. AT NO TIME did he condemn paedophilia. AT NO TIME did he endorse the age of consent. AT NO TIME did he condemn incest.

Granted, we were talking about Doctor Who and not child abuse or anything but I still find it telling that he condemned such criminal behaviour AT NO TIME during the course of our conversation.

Incidentally, he also AT NO TIME condemned the Daleks and we were ACTUALLY talking about Doctor Who, so, at very least, we must conclude that he is in favour of the EXTERMINATION of the entire human race.

It’s over for you Norris, so why don’t you and your pal Davros pack your bags and piss off to Thailand to do your ‘exterminating’ over there?
VOTE PAT COX!

FUGGER’S TRIBUTE TO THE DEAD

(pictured above: Bang! Bang! You’re dead!)

I was always moved by those military funerals with the three gun volley salute. I thought it was really clever how they fired guns over the grave of someone who had probably been shot. Paying tribute to someone by fetishising the means of their demise has a lovely symmetry to it. It kind of book-ends things if you will. It’s neat.

Keen to emulate this ingenuity, I decided to pay tribute to my late Uncle Stan (who had been run over by joy riding youths) by stealing a hearse and using it to do a series of handbrake skids over his freshly filled grave. The family looked on bewildered as loose earth flew up and hit them in the face. The fact that I got out of the car and played Taps on my Stylophone did little to help matters and everyone had a real attitude about it at the sandwiches and tea part back at the pub. My gesture had gone right over their heads.

Could’ve been worse I suppose. What if Stan died of cancer? What could I have done then? Sprinkle tumours on his tombstone? That’d be a tall order. Jesus, it could have been even worse than that. Imagine if Stan had been savaged by wolves. There would’ve been carnage at the burial. People being chased all over the graveyard. Screams and howls. Hmm, maybe it isn’t an appropriate approach after all.

GODZILLA

(Pictured above: . . . huh?)

I had a dream last night that Godzilla was stomping through the Irish Sea and headed towards Ireland. He was looking very fierce. His eyes were a blazing red and he was waving his fists around in that way he does. He was roaring his head off too and it was deafening. He really was a terrifying sight, I can’t emphasise it enough. He looked like he was fit to give the place a right going over.

Anyway, I was standing on the coast as he reached it, looking out at the mighty tsunamis that heralded his arrival by rolling into shore and trying to stay on my feet despite the awful tremors beneath me and collapsing buildings around me. Behind me was a massive congregation of tens of thousands of people but they didn’t seem to be interested in Godzilla. They were all dancing and cheering and Twittering on their iPhones as Bryan Dobson and Amy Huberman MCed an open air gig by Jedward and Westlife. Enda Kenny, Mary McAleese, David Begg and a few other dignitaries were there too, leaping about and providing backing vocals and everyone seemed to be very happy.

As his colossal foot slammed down upon Irish soil, Godzilla’s furious expression changed to one of slight perplexity. Peering down upon the masses, the monster’s brow furrowed and his head tilted to one side in the manner of a confused dog or journalist. Then Godzilla turned and he looked right at me. He was staring right at me with this puzzled expression and I was frozen to the spot. Then, emitting terrible sulphurous fumes, Godzilla opened his massive fanged mouth and it occurred to me that the creature was about to speak. And speak he did, Godzilla looked me right in the eye and said ‘Honest to God, can you believe these fuckin muppets?’
I didn’t know what to say. I just shrugged. Then I woke up.

I have no idea what that dream meant but I thought I’d share it with you anyway.

THE AUDACITY OF HOPE

Myself and the Mother were at College Green on Monday to see President Obama. We had a placard made up and everything. It said ‘Obama: Best Black Ever!’ A garda took it off us though. Racist.

We had a lovely time anyway and even got to meet the great man. (The Mother’s a past master at the old Turkish Revenge and this got us to the front of the throng pronto.) When President Obama neared us, I reached out to him and roared ‘you’re a first rate black, absolutely first rate’. I could see from the look on his face that he was affected by my words. The Mother ruined it all though when, somewhat over-exuberantly, she thrust a tin biscuit assortments box in President Obama’s direction. We’d have been shot had the box not dropped to the ground and opened, revealing its innocent content of scones. ‘They’re better off on the ground anyway’, I said to The Mother, ‘they’d have only half poisoned him like they do me’. The Mother scowled and flashed her blade so I said no more about it.

On the way home, The Mother and I discussed President Obama’s speech and it got us thinking about the power of words. ‘You know The Mother’, I said, ‘you can change almost anything just by saying a little something. You can empower people. You can enable them to rise to challenges’.

The Mother agreed and cited MLK’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, JFK’s ‘ask not’ inaugural address and Brian Lenihan’s ‘patriotic duty’ outburst as well as the time King George VI told everyone to batter the Nazis because they were even more anti-Semitic than he was. ‘Indeed The Mother’, I said, ‘if they are spoken well and if they are properly heard, the right words can turn almost any negative into a positive and bring hope where once there was none’.

It was then we remembered Uncle Larry, laid out in James’ Hospital and in need of a pep talk. ‘Let’s bring Larry a bit of Obama magic’ suggested The Mother so we hopped off the bus and went to visit him. I am sad to say that myself and The Mother’s voluminous and constant chanting of ‘is féidir leat’ at Larry's bedside did little to put his tennis ball sized tumour into remission. Uncle Larry passed away later that evening. The Mother and I returned home deflated by the realisation that, no matter how well expressed, sometimes words are not enough.

IT’S ALL A LOAD OF CODES

All is codes: from jungle drums communicating from tribe to tribe, to words, to DNA. It’s all a load of codes that get decoded and turned into ideas or life or everything else that makes us happy or sad or everything in between. Notes for the milkman, love letters, declarations of war, the next step of evolution, it’s all just a load of codes getting decoded and changing things for a while or sometimes forever.

We’re surrounded by codes, receiving and decoding, all the time: decoding, decoding, decoding. We decode the things people say to us, the stuff we read in the paper, the images we see on billboards or on the telly. The religion, the patriotism, the cultural myths and social norms we build our lives around are all just codes. Even the codes that tell us to ignore other codes are bleedin’ codes. Ideology, bias, personal taste, all are the end result of codes. We are manipulated by codes. Codes are the strings and we are the puppets. We think we’re unique individuals but we’re just a load of codes held together by flesh and bone. We’re just following whatever coded instructions we happen to come across. We’re just following orders. We’re just a load of ones and zeros.

Where have these codes gotten us? What would we be without them? I wonder what came before codes. An empty Limbo? A peaceful Nirvana?

Cryptographer and electronics pioneer Claude Elwood Shannon (pictured above) noticed that all communication came in code. He theorised the notion of the Bit (the binary digits essential to computing, telecommunications, and the modern world working at large). Shannon is considered the father of the information age.

It’s ironic that Alzheimer’s ended Shannon’s life, an illness that took his ability to decipher codes. An illness that left him scared and alone before delivering him into a codeless void. During his retirement, before his Alzheimer’s, Shannon built a little machine called the Leave Me Alone Box. It was futility in a nutshell. A device with a solitary purpose, to turn itself off once it had been turned on.

I wonder if Shannon, a man who gave more thought to information and communication than almost any other, was trying to tell us something with the Leave Me Alone Box. I wonder if he was he making a statement of some sort or maybe a joke. Why else would a man of his intellect bother to make such a contraption? Was he trying to tell us something? Was he taking the piss, . . .in code?


IN OTHER NEWS: I see that smartarse Adam Curtis will be imposing more difficult observations upon our comforting narratives tomorrow (Monday, May 23rd) on BBC2 at 9pm. It’s a Fugger recommendation and here’s a link to a tantalising promo: ALL WATCHED OVER BY MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE.
It should be better than Celebrity Risotto Challenge or whatever shite is on the other channels. Remember: Use Telly Responsibly!
. . . right, that is all. You are free to go, if indeed you are here in the first place (whatever that means).

Y’WHAT???

Y’WHAT??? The Queen is staying for another two days? We can’t leave our homes in case we’re flung in the back of garda van for another two days? Jayney Macaroni! I want to go outside. I have to. I’m hungry for fuck’s sake.

Y’WHAT??? Her son the Prime Minister is coming over today as well? He’s a smarmy little bollix and no mistake. Had his wife murdered because she was sleeping with an Arab, Al Jazeera or something his name was. Why are they all coming over here anyway? We’ve enough trouble with the Romas and now this lot. What do they want? Is it the free food? Didn’t they steal enough of our grub during the Famine? Yeah, you heard me, THE FAMINE!

Her husband’s mental too. He so old he’s gone mental. I hear they’re staying out in the Stillorgan Park Hotel and he got up at 3 a.m. and had a shite in a fire bucket. The night porter tried to stop him so they had him shot. I mean, for fuck’s sake. And we’re supposed to put up with that?

Y’WHAT?? Some UDA sorts are swinging by to hook up with them too? The U.D. fuckin A? I ask you! So now we have both the royal family and some bunch of fuckin students to contend with! Jesus lord and shit. It’s an outrage!

I reckon we should all join the bloody CIRA. Seriously. We should all join up and learn how to make bombs and when we’ve learned how to make the bombs we should make loads of them and Gaffa tape them to our heads and set them off so the fuckin UDA students and the Queen and her mad shitein’ husband and their smarmy murderer of a son can drive around all day waving at cordons with headless corpses behind them and the corpses will be us. Would that make them happy? Would it? Would that be good enough for them? Just a load of silent streets littered with dead bodies. I wonder what Kay Burley would have to say about that on Sky News? I wonder how many licence payers RTE would have left to broadcast three days of Dobson gushing over royal shite at.

Y’WHAT??? Barack Osama is coming over then too? Are you serious? Are you taking the piss? How many days is that we’re meant to stay behind fences and locked doors without a bite to eat? Jesus shite and Lord MacFuck! I’m never going to get to the Spar at this rate.

THE QUEEN’S VISIT: FUGGER'S SUGGESTION

(pictured above: out in our droves)

Perhaps, if I may be so bold to suggest it, your majesty, God bless her, could, just as a gesture, do a few circuits, not too many mind, just one for every year of British rule, of Croke Park, in full regalia, the crown, the fancy gear, the whole lot, on her hands and knees, while Jedward dance around her and give her the odd boot in the arse, not too hard mind, as she crawls around, as a kind of act of penance, just so, y’know, we can finally move on and forget all this nonsense. . .

. . .it’s just a suggestion.

. . .no takers?

Oh, very well then, forget it. Drive her around the place, buy her a bag of Tayto and let John Bruton get her autograph. Just make sure she's gone by teatime and for God's sake no one start with that Dublin Monaghan shite. She's a famous old lady not a member of MI6. It’d be like them blaming Maureen Potter for Airey Neave (which they might have done had she been in the vicinity-but let's not start with any of that either and just let the Sunday Independent staffers enjoy their big day).

May 17^th though, . . .could they not have picked another day to have her over?

CLAWS

Some people find them creepy but I think claws make great pets. You don’t have to clean up after them and they don’t require feeding. They can be quite affectionate too in their own way and it is nice to see them scuttling down the hall to meet you when you get home. If one makes the effort to overcome initial squeamishness, one finds that, as pets, claws are second to none.

There is a wide variety of claws to be had and each one is unique. You can’t break them down into species categories but there are certain types. Some are long and bony, some have talons, some are hairy, and some just look like normal human hands. The human hand types are the easiest to come by and not really valued by most collectors but I find them to be the most intelligent and you can even set them little errands, like fetching the TV remote. Try getting your typical hairy claw to do that, not likely.
(pictured above: teach them tricks)

Claws are also handy (excuse the pun) when it comes to intruders. I had a break in about a month ago but the burglar didn’t get very far before Eugene (my favourite claw) leapt upon his throat and squeezed the life out of him. At least that was the coroner’s summation. We can’t be absolutely sure as no one was there at the time but for the claws and the late criminal himself.

Women are often reluctant to entertain my fondness for claws and it’s hard to get another date once they’ve been over to my place. How many times have I seen that wide-eyed look of horror when they realise the hand creeping up their thigh is not mine but in fact a monstrous disembodied claw? It’s as horrified a look as you could expect to see. It’s almost as bad as the look I get when they realise the hand is mine. Claws are a large part of my life and if these women can’t accept that then fine. I’m sure I’ll meet a goth type or something who will be perfectly happy with my pet claws or maybe some kind of hard ass carnival woman with tattoos and all that.

The only real drawback when it comes to claw ownership is the difficulty in getting a license. I had to apply several times and they really don’t make it easy for you. It’s obvious that the authorities don’t want to encourage the domestication of claws but I see this as down to basic ignorance. There is a prejudice against claws thanks to the media and silly horror films. If treated right, claws are harmless. Yes, there was that one incident with that little girl last year but you have to wonder if she was provoking the claw that throttled her. In my experience, claws are gentle creatures as long as you respect them and are not the subject of their occult vendetta (all claws have a vendetta, it’s just their nature).

If you are interested in claw ownership there are lots of websites and books in the library with useful tips. Remember, you won’t find claws in your local pet-shop and buying them online is inadvisable as you never know what you might get. It is best to try and bag one yourself. There should be no shortage of them crawling around your nearest graveyard or place of Satanic worship.
(pictured above: provide your claw with a 'safe place'-old Tupperware is ideal)

So, that’s all I have to say about claws. I hope I’ve at least changed a few minds about our taloned friends and will just finish by reminding you that I will be on Nationwide (RTE, after the 6-1 news on Thursday) showing my claws to the delightful Mary Kennedy, so programme that into the Sky Plus and happy clawing.

FLOGGING SH1T£

When I was a kid, we made money collecting empty bottles and returning them to the supermarket. You’d make enough for a 2000AD comic and maybe a choc-ice. My brothers were a step ahead though. They used gather up any useless old shite they could find and sell it to modern art collectors for several grand.

I remember we had this old record player with a wobbly turntable so my brothers glued an ornamental clog my mam picked up in Holland to it and headed off to the Hugh Lane Gallery. When they got there they plugged in the record player and the little clog began to revolve in an undulating fashion. They told the curator the record player/clog was a ‘piece’ called I Can Hear Them On The Stairs and was inspired by The Diary of Anne Frank. The curator got very excited and gave the lads 17 grand. When they got home they found Mam a bit narked about the missing clog so cheered her up by paying off the mortgage.

I remember deciding to try it. I was a novice though. Being younger, I had a narrower frame of reference than my brothers and so found ‘flogging shite’ (as we called it) difficult. I did have one success though when I scooped up a load of golf balls from the bottom of a boating lake near the local pitch and putt course. I put the golf balls in a laundry basket I pinched from the house and carried them up to the Hugh Lane. I told the curator the basket of balls was a piece called Amazing Grace. When she asked me why the piece was called Amazing Grace, I smiled smugly and said the golf balls ‘once were lost but now are found’. Pretty clever I thought.

My confidence deflated when the curator gave me a sceptical look and sighed. I knew I had to come up with something better if I was to make the cash I needed for a swimming pool I was planning to install in the garden. Sudden inspiration struck, from who knows where, and I found myself telling the curator that my work was ‘a bespoke retro-flexive analogism re: the betrayal of objects by the unconscionable neglect of both distance and time’. The curator liked that and forked over enough cash for both a pool and a waterslide. I was fairly fucking delighted I must say.

I never made another sale after that and, once they were financially secure for the rest of their lives, my brothers gave up ‘flogging shite’ too. I hear a new crowd has gotten in on the act since. Apparently there’s this English girl called Tracy Emin who’s been sorted for 2000AD and choc-ice money for around twenty years now. Good on her I suppose.

Oh, the wittiness, . . .the awful bloody wittiness of it all.

The LOL Equation MK 2

I’m a bit uninspired today. I can’t think of what to write. Mmm, let’s see, what do I have for you. Eh, I bought some cheap biscuits in Lidl earlier. Not bad tasting. Um, and, oh yeah, ever notice how Lidl is always empty until you get to the check-out and there’s a huge queue? Yeah, mad isn’t it? Um, let’s see, what else. Mmmm, . . .dee da dum, ta dee dee dah. . . Oh yeah, I’m a bit worried they’re going to increase the management fees here. Yeah. That’d be a bit, um, crap. . .

OK, look, this obviously isn’t working out and I’ve other things to be doing. No really I do. I swear. I need a bath for a start. I think I’ll hand you over to my computerised blog post generator. I’ve fixed it up so there shouldn’t be a repeat of THE LAST MISHAP.

Right, I’m turning it on now. It’s humming. It’s coming to life. Fingers crossed. Here goes. Enjoy. . .

TITLE: RANDOM THOUGHTS...

MAIN BODY OF TEXT: Hello again Readers.

Needless to say, I like gardening so my favourite website is politics.ie because there are lots of vegetables on it. LOL!

Also needless to say is that films are rubbish these days so they should change the name of the cinema to the binema. That’s BINema, as in ‘rubbish bin(ema)’. LOL! Did you get it? Did you LOL? You should LOL! LOL Now! LOL! LOL! I command you, LOL!

I see the Arts Council have awarded Cathal O'Searcaigh some money for a new van (pictured above). ‘It’s not much but it suits my needs’, said the celebrated bursary hunter yesterday. Needless to say, the insinuation here is that O’Searcaigh is a predatory paedophile. That is LOL! LOL Now! LOL! You will LOL! All Hail LOL! YOU MUST AND WILL LOL! PRAISE LOL FOR I AM THE LORD OF LOL AND YOU WILL DO MY BIDDING! LOL! LOL! LMFAO! OMFG! NEEDLESSTOSAY! LOL! ROFL! PAED0101110100101001PHILE^PWNED+ I-AM-THE-LOL-THY-GOD{LMFAO ~ RATFLMFAO^BFF < LAWL ‰~ OMG¬ E=MC²101000101000100010101001110101001. . . BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Ah, Jesus. What’s happened now? I go away for two minutes and you break it again. What did you do to it? You’re too demanding. Christ, do you know how long it took me to set up? Now, let’s see. Good Lord, what was it saying to you? This is worse than the last time. Look, just go away. Give me a bit and I’ll see what I can do. Really though, it’s not looking good is it? It looks like I’m stuck with providing these twice weekly brain farts myself. Sod it, maybe I should just give this machine to Twenty Major. He could probably make some use of it.

OBAMA BOMBA OSAMA!

(pictured above: Osama during his residency at the Embassy Club, Manchester, 2005)

Really, I don’t know what we’ll do without him. Remember the little videos he used to leave? They were kind of vlogs really. And remember the funny little hat? I loved that hat. Remember the way he and his mates used hang around in caves? They were like The Clangers weren’t they? They were a gas little shower, popping up out of the caves and leaving videos for CNN. And his name, it sounded a bit like Aladdin didn’t it? It would’ve been class if his name was Aladdin Bin Laden and he had a flying carpet and they chased him around on it with their jets. Imagine that! Rat-a-tat-tat! Fwooosh! Alas, we won’t see it now.

Now, I know he wasn’t perfect. I know he was a bit nutty, but you have to hand it to him, he made some very exciting telly. It’s all ended a bit anticlimactically though hasn’t it? We’re not even going to get a televised funeral, like with Diana. They buried him at sea. What use is that? They just threw his body to the sharks. So, no funeral, what a let down. Where's the closure? You need a bit of decent closure to wrap things up properly. It’s like Lost all over again. I mean really, who is writing this shit?

Anyway, I’ve got to go. I hear his prayer mat is selling on E-Bay and I want to get my bid in.